When i was in school there was this joke floating around.

Ok so i went to a roman catholic school and below is the layout of the foyer of my school from when I was young, the arrow indicates a statue of mother Mary and the direction in which she faces. The longer part of the picture indicates a path leading away from the foyer and the squiggly line indicates the door to the teacher's common office. Treat the dots as spaces and the "A" as the arrow. Sheesh, it's hard to do this in reddit.

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|.........|

|....A...|

|.........|_______~~|

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With the background work done, here's the joke. I must confess, I am not actually Roman Catholic so if I get any of the prayers wrong, please do forgive me.

So there was this teacher who was trying to sell the tickets to the play of his drama club, and there was this student who was in a bit of a dilemma.

The teacher and him were great pals, and he really wanted to support him by buying a ticket to the play, however the play was held in a rather exclusive opera house and the tickets were not cheap. In addition, he has been saving for months to buy a new tennis shoe he desperately needed as his current shoe were about to break his ankles.

The choice came down to stop playing tennis, or disappointing a beloved teacher. Being a youth of faith, he decided to seek divine help. So he went to pray to the statue of mother Mary.

So late one day after school, when most everyone had gone off, he went up to mother Mary, knelt down, gathered his palms, bowed his head and closed his eyes. He prayed.

"Oh Mary! Please help me in my time of confusion, what should I do? Do I buy my shoes and pursue my dreams, or do I buy the tickets, and uphold my friendship? Pleas help me dear mother."

Coincidentally! At the same time, the teacher was just about to leave after a late night of grading papers. Just as he was about to turn the corner out of the corridor to leave through the foyer, he overheard the boy, loud and pious in prayer. Being the cheeky sort, he droned aloud as solemnly as he could.

"Buy the tickets~ Buy the tickets~"

The boy seemingly having heard this, opened his eyes and looked up in shock, then he went back into prayer and repeated.

"Oh Mary! Please help me in my time of confusion, what should I do? Do I buy my shoes and pursue my dreams, or do I buy the tickets, and uphold my friendship? Pleas help me dear mother."

At this, the teacher replied again, this time slightly more insistent.

Again, the boy was perplexed, so he tried his prayer yet again.

Again, the teacher repeated his trickery, with even more gusto!

Finally the boy said in exasperation.

"Jesus, Shut up! I am trying to talk to your mother!"